The Very Best Of Lea DeLaria aims to give jazz fans an introduction to one of the world’s greatest vocalists, alongside some of the tastiest jazz cut this century. If you are already a fan of Lea – and she is a genuine urban legend – then you will love this CD. And if you are new to Lea, well, you too will love this CD. I mean, if you don’t think this disc is awesome then watch out, Lea might just come looking for you . . . Hey, just kidding, Lea may be a famously confrontational comedian but with music she simply hopes to engage the listener.

When it comes to 21st Century Renaissance types Lea DeLaria whips pretty much everyone, male and female, to rule as current title holder. OK, she may not set any new records for running the 100 meters but amongst her many, many achievements – author (of Lea's Book of Rules for the World), taboo-busting stand-up comedian, Broadway diva, actor – Lea’s also one of the most innovative and expressive contemporary jazz singers going. Born in St. Louis to a jazz pianist father and dancer mother, she learned trombone and, on occasions, sat in and sang with dad’s jazz band.

A long detour from jazz involved DeLaria marking herself out as one of the most radical comedians going – a joke about Hilary Clinton told on the steps of The White House found Lea censured by Congress! – while also developing her considerable talents in Broadway musicals (everything from On The Town to The Rocky Horror Show) alongside acting in The First Wives Club and Edge Of Seventeen. For the latter Lea sang a version of Irving Berlin's ‘Blue Skies’ that won a 1999 Glama Award for Best Jazz Performance. Lea’s jazz leanings may have surprised some but Lea had already performed tributes to Billie Holiday. She also once stated that her mission on earth was “to bring traditional jazz and be-bop to the gay and lesbian community.”

The opportunity to embark on said mission came about when she performed at a Los Angeles tribute for composer Stephen Sondheim in 2000. “I had been tinkering with this arrangement of ‘Sweeney Todd’ which was a swing arrangement,” recalls Lea, “and I stopped the show with it! And all these people from the Warner Jazz label were in the audience. It was kinda like Lana Turner, only I wasn’t wearing a sweater set.”

This lead directly to her 2001-debut album Play It Cool which found DeLaria reinventing Sweeney and other Broadway tunes in a jazz setting. Play It Cool is one of the most engaging albums of recent times and demonstrated how Lea was second to no one as a jazz singer. Lea embarked on tours of the US and Europe and found herself championed everywhere for her expressive singing. The Guardian’s John Fordham summed her up as "talks like a coffee grinder and sounds like a cross between Ella Fitzgerald and a Broadway diva." Lea accepts the comparison to Fitzgerald (and other legendary female jazz singers that have come her way) as a compliment but states that she’s no ‘homage’ singer; instead, Lea DeLaria is intent on carving her own path.

“I’ve been more influenced by instrumentalists as a singer than I have been by actual singers. I mean, I listen a lot to singers. Ella Fitzgerald and Betty Carter. Dianne Reeves and Anita O’Day. But mostly what I listen to are instrumentalists. You will always hear a saxophone playing when I listen to music.”

Which is why Lea cites John Coltrane as her favourite musician.

“Coltrane spent a lifetime trying to sound unique and to have his own style. As a jazz musician I find it very important to find my own style so it's interesting when reviewers compare me to a laundry list of other singers. We're talking everyone from Björk to Ethel Merman. When I sing a particular song I try to remain true to its style. The reality is, I sound like me. I'm just able to sing in a variety of styles. And that's how I try to find my own."

In 2005 Lea released her second album for Warner Bros.. On Double Standards, DeLaria radically reinterpreted rock songs, many of them from the punk / grunge scene, as jazz standards, once again proving to be on contemporary music’s cutting edge: Double Standards won praise from jazz critics while also being celebrated by music publications whose focus rarely touches upon jazz. Indeed, Mojo called Double Standards “one of the greatest jazz vocal albums of the last five years”.

“The reality is that with Double Standards I desperately tried to get people in jazz to realise that they can’t just keep reinventing the same tunes over and over again,” says DeLaria. “Jazz has changed. That’s what Miles Davis and Charlie Parker were all about. This is the music of the college age set and we’re swinging it.”

Double Standards worked so well Lea found several of the songs’ composers lining up to praise her interpretations. “I’m a lover of the swing vibe,” said Perry Farrell of Lea’s cover of ‘Been Caught Stealing’, “and she caught it. It’s not kitsch, it’s seriously good.” Lea adds that her studio band of Gil Goldstein (piano), Christian McBride (acoustic bass) and Bill Stewart (drums) bring great feeling and technique to arranging and playing songs they had never previously heard.
With The Very Best Of Lea DeLaria you will find fifteen tunes ranging from soft and meditative to swinging and salacious. For dedicated Lea fans there are two new songs – a heartfelt ‘Some Other Time’ from the Broadway musical On The Town (Lea starred in this to much acclaim) and a roaring take on Duke Ellington’s ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Aint Got That Swing)’. And you know what? When Lea sings Ellington I believe that just might be her manifesto for living.

“What I’ve found is that when I open my mouth to sing,” says Lea on her life in jazz, “there’s not a whole lot they can say. I’ve never really had any detractors about that. I’ve even made friends of enemies with it.”

Garth Cartwright